Don't panic... but our fragile world is drifting away from the Sun As the Sun ages and sheds mass, the gravitational pull it exerts on its planets weakens. That means that the orbits of those home worlds slowly expand over time. Now, scientists have calculated this shift, and published the figures in Nature Communications on Thursday. The Sun is continuously ditching material as its charged …
Great. Thanks, I won't panic then. Oh, hang on. I have a house full of computing gear with Intel processors, our Chromecasts are regularly DDoSing our wifi and Donald Trump is still US president.
Perhaps I will panic after all.
<glass _half_full>The good news is I suppose that as Earth is getting further away from the Sun, the possibility of our home planet plunging into the Sun is receding.</glass _half_full>
Don't panic! Says who? The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was only written in 1978, just 40 years ago, and then the Earth orbited the sun at a distance of roughly 92 million miles. That's now gone up to roughly 93 million miles. That's 25,000 miles a year! At that rate of drift, we'll be doing Moonbase Alpha impersonations before my great, great, great grandchildren are out of nappies!
Mine's the one with the Eagle authorised com-lock in the pocket.
Earth has been secretly plotting to escape from Sol for years, before it blows up and takes us all with it. It's already put down a deposit for its new home in the Pavo constellation. All that's left to do is book the removal lorry and call a taxi.
So, let me get this straight, are you nailing your climate change denying colours to the mast by trying to conflate two entirely different conversations? And do you have some kind of Trumpist problem with main stream media? Do you, for example, prefer a conspiracy hypothesis (theory being too solid a term for the nonsense peddled by the alt-right) to a carefully researched story?
I think what I’m trying to get at is, are you a troll or are you howling at the moon stupid?
So, as the sun runs away from us, it'll get colder. No Global Warming, Climate Change Hype* etc etc.
Don't you realise that a whole alarmist industry is about to go down the crapper??
Pundits will starve. Parasitical Panic merchants will go mad. KITTENS WILL DIE.
Lets Party like it's a Maunder Minimum - Frost Fairs ahoy!
"That's a great idea. I proudly yet angrily award you the polluting medal of pollution."
Can I have one, too?
I used to love my X-Trail diesel, especially when a couple of the injectors were wearing out. I could build up soot in the exhaust by driving like an environmental saint so the turbocharger slept. Mile after mile of safe, boring driving. But then, overtaking a posse of cyclists, I'd be able to floor the pedal, the turbo would kick in, and all that soot would be blasted out, and I'd be laying smoke like a destroyer. It was magic.
My new car's disgustingly clean. I'm wondering if I can retrofit some extras, like separate dispensers for chilli powder, ash, anthrax, rubbish, wasps nests, and anti-bike tacks.
True, if "global warming" was a thing, but, as it's actually climate change, with weather extremes at both ends, the joke must fall flat.
Also the Earth can be further away from the Sun and hotter, just as Venus is hotter than Mercury, but is further from the Sun.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.08550
The 'Earth Rocket': a Method for Keeping the Earth in the Habitable Zone
Mark A. Wessels
The Sun is expected to increase its radiant output by about 10% per billion years. The rate at which the radius of the Earth's orbit would need to increase in order to keep the present value of the Sun's radiant flux at the Earth constant is calculated. The mechanical power required to achieve this is also calculated. Remarkably, this is a small fraction (2.3%) of the total solar flux currently intercepted by the Earth. Treating the Earth itself as a rocket, the thrust required to increase the orbit is found, as well as the rate of mass ejection. The Earth has sufficient mass to maintain this rate for several billion years, allowing for the possibility that the Earth could remain habitable to biological life for billions of years into the future.
Voyager 2 is about 126AU out from the sun, so when it aims its signals at NASA HQ it only has to point at the sun with a beam which will be 2AU across by the time it gets here. That's just a one-degree angle, but I bet in practice it's a lot wider than that already. So, no, I don't think they'll be spending today hurriedly rewriting the specs for all their planned probe missions. ;-)
14cm per year only makes 70cm over the course of 5 years. Probes need plenty of adjustments on the way. For instance, for the 2nd Venus flyby, cassini fired its rockets for 90 whole minutes. Rosetta's initial trajectory was only accurate to about 100km at launch and needed adjustments as it got closer...
I am not sure about this, but I think that we are not actually all that sure where the planets and other objects are. The problem is that with a probe around them we can calculate the distance quite easily down to probably centimetres, but the rest is a bit more tricky. When the probe stick around for a while we can probably triangulate quite well when the earth shifts its position due to its orbit around the sun. But most of the planets we do not have permanent probes around.
Again, not sure about this, but I think the error of margin on placing objects in the outer solar system can hundreds of kilometres. The adjust the approach visually with navigation cameras. Both due to uncertainty of where the probe is, but also about where the object really is.
as it ages, so we need to get away from it to remain at the same temperature.
There are other effects that contribute to Orbital Decay, but they are also very small in the case of the Earth.
You know, after reading the headline I was absolutely shocked. Shocked to the point where I thought death was to be placed upon me shortly.
Now though I realise that 1.5cm a year isn't anything special, and I'm not going to die, so I've decided to go on YouPorn.
If it's good enough for Hawians after a missile scare, it's good enough for me.
Paris icon because, well, I might be a fan.
Hey Wolfie, when you say you've decided to "go on" YouPorn is that as a star performer, whether single or with others, or merely as a viewer?
Whilst on, i'm also hearing that 2017 was the hottest (well, maybe one of the top three, depending how they fiddle,er adjust it) years on record - all the way back to 1850 can you believe.
Not round here it's not, nowhere near. My garden flaura did not like the latter six months of 2017 at all, the weather is currently shit, and i'm flu'd up.
Yes, i know that local weather, local climate is not the same as Global Warming/Global Change.
Strange isn't it, the experts would have you believe it's all "man made" warming yet very little if anything is said, never mind being done, to address the explosion of the "man" part.
@The Nazz
"Strange isn't it, the experts would have you believe it's all "man made" warming yet very little if anything is said, never mind being done, to address the explosion of the "man" part."
I don't think that there's any doubt about the majority of global warming being anthropogenic. It's a problem - and we need to fix it. But, if I've understood you correctly, you're suggesting that the real problem is that there are just too many of us. If there were fewer of us then we could enjoy eating meat, driving gas guzzling cars, jetting around and generally having a fine old time without causing any problem at all? Is that it? Have I understood correctly? Because, if so, have an upvote.
It seems to me that there are two solutions to this problem. We can keep shagging and increasing the population, but we'll have to put up with an ascetic, vegan, lifestyle. Or, and this is my preferred solution, we can stop having kids (ideally an average family size of <1 child on average per couple - but <2 on average at most), quarter the population of the planet, and then party like theres no tomorrow. Rewards and bonuses for the winners who manage to get to the end of the ride without having spawned.
…Which counts me out. I am, I'm afraid to say, a massive hypocrite. But it is the sensible solution.
Or, and this is my preferred solution, we can stop having kids (ideally an average family size of <1 child on average per couple - but <2 on average at most), quarter the population of the planet
Most countries of Europe and North America already have family sizes of below the replacement rate. The rate of population growth in most of the rest of the world has been slowing down since the 1970s; most of the people who will be alive in 2050 have already been born, and the global population is forecast to level out by 2100. The few countries which buck this trend tend to be war-torn ones like Afghanistan and Somalia.
Given that China's One Child policy had to be abandoned as unworkable (not to mention hated so much that even the CP feared there would be a violent backlash they couldn't control), how do you plan to impose your solution upon the world? Will it involve guns? Or will it involve the wealthier countries providing more international aid to further support the existing, proven path of increasing the provision of healthcare and of women's empowerment?
@Rich 11
"Or will it involve the wealthier countries providing more international aid to further support the existing, proven path of increasing the provision of healthcare and of women's empowerment?"
I like this idea. Anything which improves equality and furthers education and health has to be a good thing in my book. Besides, the cost of providing aid seems to be small compared with the cost of waging war, for a given improvement in global safety and reduction of terrorism. Not to mention that it's just the right thing to do.
Zero growth has been tried before and it results in the population controlling growth being overrun.
Spreading the wealth only works whilst the "rich" local populations remain rich once they approach equality then their local populations rebel since the new rich do not reciprocate.
Groups such as religions that promote large families would eventually gain control and reduce the rational populations even further than they had themselves already.
It's all been tried before and that we are still here with the same problem says that the only way out is something new.
The only viable solution to retain the rational culture currently realising the problem is to expand to new living locations and this would require the wealth not being spread out or squandered but used to futher that aim. Sadly the populations that recognise the problem are mostly capitalist where the wealth is held by individuals who are inherantly just as selfish and irrational as the populations who reject the need for change.
Unless something radical happens then the old fallbacks of war, famine and disease will do the work for us.
This problem is far from new but perhaps this time around we might get off the carousel before we loose the tools we need to solve the problem. Certainly though it won't be via wishful dreams of zero growth in rational populations it will only be via making the most of what we have learned and controlling the irrational populations before they destroy all we have gained.
Massive pharmaceutical industry that thrives on government mandates and paranoia - it definitely will be the US. If it is a resource rich country or strategically close to one then they can slip a few terrorists and guns in there as well. Provide jobs and make America great again Your tax dollars at work!
how do you plan to impose your solution upon the world?
I propose some sort of space station that only some people get to go on space shuttles and then it blows up the world and then they all go back and have lots of babies. James Bond will return in "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY". The End.
... fine weather for the concert here this afternoon. I'm standing here in front of the stage,' the reporter lied, 'in the middle of the Rudlit Desert, and with the aid of hyperbinoptic glasses I can just about make out the huge audience cowering there on the horizon all around me. Behind me the speaker stacks rise like a sheer cliff face, and high above me the sun is shining away and doesn't know what's going to hit it. The environmentalists lobby do know what's going to hit it, and they claim that the concert will cause earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes irreparable damage to the atmosphere, and all the usual things that environmentalists usually go on about.
But I've just had a report that a representative of Disaster Area met with the environmentalists at lunchtime, and had them all shot, so nothing now lies in the way of ...
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